Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Flash Annual #5 (June 1992)

This cover is almost a goatse!

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Flash Annual #5 (June 1992)
By Mark Waid, Craig Boldman, Travis Charest, Dan Davis, Scott Hanna, John Lowe, Timothy Harkins, and Matt Hollingsworth
Cover by Travis Charest and Dan Davis
Edited by Brian Michael Augustyn

The Cover!
This is dangerous territory for a critic (and while I might not be a critic, I am intensely critical). I've heard that some idiot's mother once said something about not saying anything at all rather than dropping your drawers and shitting all over Travis Charest. But I don't get many opportunities to do it so why would I listen to that idiot's mother (who is also an idiot)? I had the opportunity to express my displeasure with his work on Darkstars and one of the covers of Robin III: Cry of the Huntress. I'll get another chance whenever I get to DC Showcase '93. But for now, here we have, basically, his first professional gig (being that this was released in 1992 and Showcase '93 in — you guessed it — 1993). And for his first cover, Travis decided to go with 60% solid black inks. Since this is an Eclipso story, I'll allow that it was a fine, if lazy, idea. About 30% of the rest of the cover, as we'll see in his general artwork (I'm assuming since I haven't actually opened this book for thirty-four years), lines. Lines, lines, and more lines is something I'm assuming Travis's art teacher once told him five thousand times. "If you think you have enough lines, you don't! Only when you're dizzy with vertigo from all the lines will your be able to declare your work finished!" Judging by that metric, Travis Charest has knocked this cover out of the ballpark. I just wish I hadn't been standing in the parking lot to catch it.

So many lines . . . going to . . . vomit . . .

The Story So Far
I don't know. Eclipso has eclipsed a number of heroes but not enough. I guess he's got Bruce Gordon's girlfriend's hot ass now as well as a handful of actual heroes, none of them that impressive: Starman, Hal Jordan, Star Sapphire, The Creeper, Valor. I'm not sure if he managed to capture Etrigan because my Eclipso Demon Annual isn't with this batch of Eclipso books being that I actually collected The Demon at the time. So it's with them.

The Story
The issue begins with me thinking, "I knew I came here to make fun of Travis Charest but I didn't think I'd get Mark Waid in my sights as well."

The only way this conversation makes sense is if it's one of The Kids in the Hall sketches where they make fun of stupid cops (i.e., all cops).

It's possible (probable, even, but I'm being purposefully dense right now) that the panel makes perfect sense but I've been programmed to understand fanny in the British sense and now I'm picturing somebody wiggling their fanny and most of the blood has left my brain for a secret location on my body. If you're over 18, you can drop me an email and I'll tell you what secret body part that is. If you're under 18, you probably already know I meant my penis.

The cops discuss how much they know about and love nuts while The Flash runs by on a nightly jog. Wally decides to investigate because an optometrist building nearby, the one the cop was talking about, wasn't there the day before. I would have stopped to investigate to make sure either the cop wasn't suffering from a nut allergy or an ape wasn't impersonating a cop. One of those reasons.

At this point in Travis Charest's career, he had never actually seen a human face.

The cop who wanted the other cop to do a sexy little dance earlier happens to be so hungry he's getting a headache. Luckily, they find a can of nuts on the ground so why not eat up? Free trash still in the can? Delicious! The big twist is that the can of nuts was rolled out into the street by The Trickster so you know it won't have nary a nut inside it. It's probably full of raisins. Ha ha! What a trick that would be!

I should offer up a correction and say that the cops were actually night deposit security men? You know, the kinds of guys who drive armored trucks full of money around. But they do it at night because it's more dangerous and easier to be robbed? And that's what The Trickster's doing. The Flash can't stop him because Weather Wizard appears at just the right time to freeze Wally in a block of ice. It doesn't kill him though because, um, comic books, I guess. He also doesn't vibrate out of it because Wally sucks (which the Rogues make sure to mention, of course. "Barry Barry Barry!" they say while then saying, "Barry! Barry Barry!"). They get away to go have a secret Rogues Gallery meeting while The Flash thaws out, goes home, and has a mini-adventure inside his friend Chunk's butthole. I mean black hole. I don't know. It was weird. If it has anything to do with the rest of the story, I'll mention it then. Otherwise, I'm moving on and ignoring it.

If only he had been in Chunk's butthole though! You would have had a play-by-play of that encounter!

Captain Cold has sent out an invitation to the Rogues for an emergency meeting. I guess they meet in a movie theater because why not be complete and utter pieces of shit when you're already mostly a piece of shit? The people trying to watch the movie do this thing to show their disapproval of other people talking through the film. Here it is:

I can't believe they actually went there! Such harsh criticism!

I wonder if Mark Waid just wrote in his script, "Have the other movie-goers show their disapproval," and Travis was all, "Oh, a thumbs down! That's like an international sign that nobody would ever use but I'll have everybody in the theater use it as if it's a common thing to do!" I mean, maybe it was a common thing to do in a '90s movie theater and my choice of yelling, "SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU FUCKING STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS!" was a bit too Avant Garde for most people.

Later, Chillblaine doesn't know how to cross his arms and the Rogues share their love of Tuesday.

I think Travis asked a friend to pose with their arms crossed and then, having to think about how they cross their arms instead of just doing it, panicked and came up with that.

But before Tuesday comes around so that everybody can, I don't know, fuck it, I guess?, everybody has to get through Monday just chillin'.

I guess Mondays are for masturbation?

Mondays are also for kidnapping Wally West which is what Chillblaine, the least chill of the group, does with his day. Chillblaine just seems to be some raging Alpha bag full of testosterone that Golden Glider's currently fucking. I guess her brother, Captain Cold, was in jail at the time so Chillblaine's taken his place in with the Rogues. Nobody likes him because he can't cross his arms correctly and he's a dick.

Turns out Mondays are actually for each of the Rogues to stab each other in the back by doing the Tuesday job on their own one day early. It doesn't work out because they all do it which means it probably worked out perfectly for Chillblaine and Golden Glider who knew they would all attempt the job early. That's just stories work when you've got a writer who decides that plans always work out perfectly until they finally don't for some reason which is weird because all the things that happen in a plan are usually wildly implausible and then a normal thing in the plan's chain breaks and I'm always all, "Wait. What? THAT didn't work?! The easiest part of the plan?! But the part where the plan relied on the hero to take two minutes longer than usual on his morning shit because they fed him some extra fiber did work?!"

I'm guessing The Flash's secret identity isn't secret (I assume this because all of his villains are always all, "Barry was way better at this than you!") or else why would Chillblaine want to kidnap Wally West? Fuck, I just realized I don't even know what Wally West's regular job was. I'm going to guess "slacker" which is why he probably doesn't have a secret identity. He's all, "See?! I'm not lazy! You're lazy! Because you're all so fucking slow is what I'm saying! Idiots!"

Oh, um, well, there you go! Question answered!

I'm such a dumb jerk. I just realized Chillblaine is probably Starman. This whole plan to trick the Rogues into stealing the Black Diamond and kidnapping The Flash so he can send him on their tail is the entire Eclipso plan! I probably would have figured it out a long time ago if I didn't spend several days between each page I read.

I'm 27 pages in and I know I haven't been giving Travis Charest the hard time I promised. You can see in the panels I've scanned why I would want to give him a hard time but Mark Waid's script is also pretty fucking bad so I've been a bit distracted. But I thought I should maybe give Trav his big chance at being insulted by me, the greatest comic book critic on the Internet! But that's when Golden Glider showed up and my brain was all, "Hey, he does nice tits, doesn't he?" And I was all, "Hey, Brain? Could you stop trying to get a response out of Dick? You know he's 54, right? He doesn't just hop-to at a couple of nicely drawn titties. He needs story these days! He needs, say, a pirate whose cousin has just come aboard his ship after they hadn't seen each other for fifteen years and she's wearing tight leather pants and a billowy shirt that keeps billowing almost enough to see nipple (which you can see anyway through the shirt what with the cool breeze blowing and also she probably iced them up before the shot). And she's all, "Oh my god! I'm so horny after my encounter with those eight sex mermaids who did all kinds of disgusting things to me but couldn't finish me off because I need some serious man penetration!" And then her cousin is all, "Yeah, me too! Lucky I run a gay pirate ship!" And then he hands her an eight-dicked octopus dildo and says, "Maybe this will help!" And she's all, "Well, it's better than nothing. But can I at least watch all y'all gays fuck as fuck myself raw?" And he's all, "Actually, tonight is Scrabble night!" And she's all, "Fuck! I love Scrabble! I can pleasure myself later!" And then there's like two hours of exciting Scrabble play and what was I talking about?"

Luckily the tits were kind of hard to see in this panel so I noticed a few other things wrong with it. See if you can spot them too!

I guess the main thing wrong with that panel is that Chillblaine must be about ten feet tall. But maybe that's not wrong because is he ten feet tall? The other problem I have with that picture is this: Where did the '90s artists who were so bad at art and yet so beloved by idiot comic book lovers all learn to draw the same stupid faces? This is how Travis draws faces but it may as well be Rob Liefeld or Marat Mychaels. Probably others but, like, I never read Pre-Image Marvel and then Image. I definitely never looked at a cover of any of the '90s X-Men off-shoots or Image books and thought, "Holy shit that looks amazing! I have to buy it!" To me, it all read exactly like the cover of Doom Force. That was a parody that got it so exactly right.

It turns out Wally West has been attached to the sphere in which the Black Diamond is kept. Golden Glider poisons the Rogues by fucking them with her poison puss and then tells them that whichever gets the Black Diamond away from Flash gets the antidote. Okay, maybe Starman is actually Golden Glider since she's thought up this overly complicated plan to Eclipse The Flash. My plan, if I were Eclipso, would be to possess a worker at Wally's favorite pizza place, put a bunch of the wrong toppings on one of his pizzas along with the Black Diamond, and then when he finds the Diamond and takes it off the pizza, he'll be super pissed at them getting the order wrong. Then after he destroys the pizza chain and kills a bunch of teenage employees, he'll be free to do Eclipso's bidding!

Instead The Flash battles Captain Boomerang in a fight so confusing that I still don't know what happened. I'm not sure Travis Charest understood Waid's script and completely fucked up the fight scene.

Go ahead. Make sense of that yourself! I can't look at it anymore. I've thrown up on my laptop six times from line-induced vertigo!

What happened (which was not represented visually at all except vaguely one time) was that Captain Boomerang threw a boomerang that split every time it was hit but then it kept flying around and/or at Wally as if it had been thrown like a real boomerang. So when The Flash is spinning in that one panel, I guess he's causing all the little boomerangs (millions at this point? I don't know because Travis only ever drew three boomerangs (the first one and then a panel with two more that you really had to work hard to interpret that they were born of the first one) to orbit him so he can smash them all back at their source? And somehow when he smashes them back at the source, this time they didn't all split when struck because they were, um, confused from the spinning?

I think maybe Travis's art goes pretty well with Waid's script! Well paired! Like Dog Urine Rosé and Cat Shit Linguine!

Speaking of Doom Force, there's an advert for it in this issue! "Hey kids! Are you currently making fun of the art you're seeing right now? Well see how Grant Morrison, Keith Giffen, and Steve Pugh make fun of it!"

So a whole bunch of confusing battle happens. I can't follow hardly any of it once The Flash smashes through the ceiling riding a spout of Weather Wizard's water. Everybody gets lost. Nobody knows what's what. Glider and Chillblaine actually fuck downstairs during the battle. The Black Diamond they're fighting over turns out to be a bomb of some kind and The Flash rushes outside to throw it in the air where it can explode harmlessly. But does he run out and hammer throw it on the end of its tether? No. He puts it in a wheelchair and then push-throws the wheelchair into the sky? Like, um, that was actually more difficult? Barry would have done the hammer throw, dude.

Anyway, The Flash winds up Eclipsed because he gets mad when his friend Chunk shows up and doesn't save him. Um. What? I'm not even sure why Chunk was there. Some mystery person in a sleek car lured him over. Starman, maybe? I bet it was revealed in the script but Travis Charest didn't know how to convey the reveal in images and so he just left the unknown person as glowing eyes and a smile in the darkness.

The Ranking!
Absolute dogshit. Saying this is dogshit might be an insult to the colon of a dog because why would I accuse it of being able to push out something this fucking horrible. I'd rather step in dogshit than read this comic book again. I wonder if I drank three liters of vodka right now, the ensuing black-out would incorporate this moment into it and I could forget I ever read it. No, I'd better forget that rout. Every sci-fi story in existence where somebody chose to forget something always winds up with the person so curious about what they forgot and why that they seek out the memory. I'd like to assume that I trust myself enough to not seek out the reason I chose memory loss over the memory but I also think I should trust better writers before me and the lessons they've tried to teach. I didn't read nearly every book by Philip K. Dick and not learn a little something about, um, memory loss and delusional identity disorders?

Dead Again #1 (October 2001)

Wait. This isn't The Spectre.

Deadman isn't know for being the size of a poorly dressed kaiju and holding the corpses of damned fools. But The Spectre is absolutely known for that. Did José Luis García-López get the assignment and, being that they were 54 years old here (an age I'm so super close to it scares the shit out of me) at the time, did they just read "Deadman" as "The Spectre"? Then halfway through the painting, Vance dropped a message, "How's that Deadman cover coming along?" And José Luis García-López was all, "¡Santa mierda!" Then they quickly erased the hood, threw up some big collars, and masked all the greens and filled in red. Or, and here's a big shocker to nobody who regularly reads anything I write online, being that I'm nearly 54, I don't know what I'm talking about and just don't remember that maybe Deadman constantly takes the form of a gigantic zombie. Who knows? It's 50-50 one way or the other according to First Law of Schrödinger's Cat Club. I think the formal rule is "Ignorance is a coin flip."

Another surprise revelation: I don't remember anything from this comic from 24 years ago or why I picked it up. If I had to bet, I'd guess the phrase, "A Crisis in Hand!", aroused something masturbatory in me and I couldn't resist. Or I just glimpsed quickly at the exposed chest and thought this was a Power Girl comic. Or I just loved when Barry Allen died so much that I wanted to revisit it.

The issue begins with an augury.

Technically, a haruspicy. Take that, person on tumblr who was about to reblog this with a long explanation on the history of augury.

I constantly write as if somebody is actually reading this. Is that a psychosis of some sort? I remember when I was reading every issue of The New 52 and had over a thousand readers thinking, "People really enjoy my reviews!" But I quickly realized, from the way people told me how much they hate my reviews, that they really just wanted to know what was happening in The New 52 without actually having to read The New 52. I should have blocked them all! Go read the synopsis of The New 52 by all those boring comic book "reviewers", like my nemeses, the guys at Weird Science, whom I'd totally forgotten about! My guess is that reading the synopses of all the DC plots is the main reason anybody reads their boring reviews that never discuss their personal flaws or the times they committed sleepy sex crimes against animals, or whatever other weird stuff I'm sure they got up to but aren't telling their loyal readers who deserve to know. I know Eric sucked milk directly out of a cow's teat. Just be honest, guys!

I hope one of them is named Eric or it'll look like I have no respect for my enemies.

Back to this first page that is super complicated and profound. For example, we learn that the dawn is the beginning of the day when things are first illuminated. And being illuminated means learning something. And what's better to learn at the beginning than an ending? I just mean if you're a writer trying to be literary. Plus the oracle kills a cock which usually crows at dawn. It brings knowledge of the coming day. Now, in its death, it brings knowledge of the oracle's coming death. The main thing this scene leaves me wondering is this: how often does this man try to augur the day of his death? You'd think he'd only need to do it once and then he'd have the knowledge. Which should mean this is his first time doing it so it's a huge coincidence that he discovers he's going to die that night! That's bad luck. Unless, because prophecy is a really tricky and manipulative jerk, the act of scrying for his death date actually brings about his death! I always knew you shouldn't play with this mystic shit. It's like never going to the doctor and then when you finally do, they're all, "Oh, you've got Stage 8 Cancer of the Everything." People probably think, "Oh no! You should have gone sooner!" But we all know it was the whole looking in the box that was the problem and the coin came up tails. Should have left the fucking hospital or rooster or box alone!

The old guy spends the rest of the day incanting some spell to make sure he will live forever. Not necessarily in the old, frail body he's currently residing in but somewhere, somehow. I guess I've got a better answer now to the question of how I would spend the last 24 hours if I knew I was going to die: cast a spell to make sure that I don't die!

This pile of narrative nonsense takes place at the same moment the old guy's spell activates.

I call the words in the above page "narrative nonsense" because they either say nothing or actively contradict each other at the same time. It's like an incredibly complicated math equation. It looks intense but both sides of the equation equal the same thing and it's usually something boring like one or zero. It's at the same moment but time doesn't mean anything. It's not a different dimension but a different perception which, at best, is semantics and, at worst, means nothing at all. Every thing is too subtle but also too vast, under but also over. It is infinite but immeasurably brief. It's the written equivalent of a close-up magician making you look at the wrong hand so that you think actual magic just happened. "Oh look at all the words and complex thoughts! I just read something profound!"

So after the old man casts his lich spell and the floaty guy disappears from his infinite second, Deadman floats above Earth during DC's first ever major Crisis event.

Why is this fucker talking like Trump?

Obviously there are worse things about people who support Trump but really early on in 2015 or 2016, I was all, "I don't care if you support Trump but if you actually think he's smart, you're a fucking imbecile." Now I would never say that because of all the other horrible things supporting Trump obviously makes you!

I scanned the most boring part of that page because I wanted to point out that Deadman was speaking like a 2nd grader. Beneath Deadman, the scene is full of dinosaurs and panicked people and crashed satellites and George Washington (unless it's Paul Revere and he's all, "The Anti-Monitor is coming! The Anti-Monitor is coming!"

The issue is called "The Quick and the Dead" because I think that's one of Jesus's parables and also Deadman and The Flash star in this comic. I'm more of a Genesis expert than a New Testament expert. I haven't read The New Testament straight through, possibly because every time Jesus tells a parable, the slackers following him around are all, "What does it mean?! What are you saying?! DURR DURR DURR DURR!" And then Jesus has to explain the parable. But then later, Jesus will tell another parable that leaves them confused so he sighs and tells them what it means. One thing I'll say for him, Jesus is cool. I mean, he's stubborn and expects a lot out of his followers and never gives up on the idea that maybe someday they'll be able to use their brains.

Deadman spots a couple of guys he recognizes in the crowd and floats down to see what's up.

It's God's Wrath and, I don't know, Judas Iscariot in a fedora.

For the Wrath of God, The Spectre acts unreasonably calm in the face of total annihilation. Shouldn't this motherfucker be raging at the dying of the anti-light? Instead he's gossiping with his fancy lad friend. Deadman ditches these losers to go watch the real heroes like Superman and Blue Beetle save the universe.

Deadman thinks he knows his limits as a ghost who happened to die in the most humiliating outfit imaginable but he soon learns differently. Rama Kushna contacts him to let him know he has a purpose!

I mean, he doesn't tell him what that purpose is. Just hints around at it like a fucking jerk.

I guess "Time is of the essence" means "I don't have time to explain how you can save the entire fucking universe but I will hint cheekily at it and hope you figure it out or everybody is fucked. Oh well! Look at all the words that followed 'Time is of the essence' that could have been used to tell you what to do! What did you expect from some sort of Zen-Buddhist god-like being? You're lucky I wasn't all, 'Time is off the essence but if you "book" it, the necessary "changes" will be brought about.' Then imagine how much time you'd waste throwing coins to cast your hexagram to figure out what to do! Man, I made it way too easy for you this time!"

Deadman sees The Flash appear in that iconic moment where he's running to save everything while dying from antimatter and Boston thinks, "Hey! The clues from Rama! I gotta become The Flash! OH!" Great. My brain just fucked me by deciding that Deadman sounds like Andrew Dice Clay. I might as well get comfortable living with it because it's the only voice I'm going to hear when reading any of his lines until the day I die. Thanks, brain. You're more like my asshole than you realize.

Oh hey! There's an advert for Tang on the opposite page that either makes no sense or makes the most awful sense.

Is Tang implying school sloppy joes are made from orangutan?

Deadman hitches a ride on The Flash into the antimatter universe of Qward. But the trauma from the trip knocks him loose and he loses The Flash once he gets there. He also encounters the Anti-Monitor overseeing construction of his antimatter cannon which will be used to destroy the non-antimatter universe (that doesn't sound right. Posimatter? Promatter? Plusmatter? Bettermatter? Just matter?!) so Deadman tries to possess him. I don't know what his plan after that was. Can he force a person to jump off a cliff and dash themselves upon some rocks Midsommer-style or is that against the rules? It doesn't matter because he just bounces directly off the Anti-Monitor. The Anti-Monitor senses that some weird guy just tried to enter him but becomes distracted when The Flash appears wielding Psycho-Pirate as a weapon.

Classic Barry Allen plotline! Force a sad, crying man to whip everybody into a frenzy and then accept all the accolades for saving the day.

The Flash abandons Psycho-Pirate after using him for his powers. He lies on a scaffold, crying, broken, full of so many emotions that aren't his. The perfect body for Deadman to control and use for himself! Deadman possesses Psycho-Pirate to make sure all the Qwardians run in fear to give The Flash time to destroy the antimatter cannon. Then he also abandons Psycho-Pirate who, I'm assuming, immediately kills himself.

As the antimatter cannon comes apart, Deadman goes into a two-page fugue state where he remembers his origin story and subsequent adventures. That's for everybody who picked up this comic book and were all, "What's a Deadman? How is this guy a hero? What made him dead? How come he's a man? I'm intrigued!" Well, now they know how it happened! And you can too if you just search "Deadman" on Wikipedia!

Deadman fails to save The Flash in the end. Which we all knew because Barry Allen died in the original Crisis and nobody had yet thought, "You know what would be awesome? If we brought back that boring motherfucker Barry Allen! The guy nobody is clamoring to bring back! The one guy absolutely and fully surpassed by his protégé, Wally West." So instead of saving The Flash, Deadman's job is to make sure The Flash goes into the light, never to fucking return. Ever. Get out of here, Barry! Don't let the cosmic door hit you in the place where you shit poo!

But Deadman fails at this task too! He's stopped just on the threshold of Heaven by some guy named Darius Caldera!

It's the guy who did the augury at the beginning!

Darius lived in Nanda Parbat when Deadman lived there and since everybody in Nanda Parbat was basically an evil supervillain turned peaceful by the calming rays of Zen Buddhism, now that Panda Barbat has been destroyed, Darius is a huge jerk again. And he doesn't want to die so he cast that spell to keep him at death's threshold, waiting for a chance to return to life via some trickery involving the dead who pass by.

So that's his plan! Capturing powerful souls to wear as jewelry!

There must be a second part to Darius's plan but he decided not to reveal it in this issue. I'm sure it has something to do with using the souls to resurrect himself. But it could also be something more cool, like using the soul's to usurp God's throne and become the ruler of all creation himself! For some reason, he doesn't want Boston Brand's soul. I guess circus performers are beneath him.

Dead Again #1 Rating: B. Deadman wasn't any help at all in the infinite Earth crisis, simply observing and shouting stuff and using actual thought bubbles to express himself. So Rama Kushna must have contacted Boston to stop Darius Caldera from stealing the souls of all of the most popular DC characters that have ever died and using them as flair and accessories. If The Flash became a necklace, what will Caldera use Jason Todd for? Hopefully a Prince Albert. I only mention Jason Todd because I've already seen the cover to the second issue. If I had to guess which souls Caldera was taking, the soul of the worst Robin ever wouldn't have been in my top 80 guesses. I don't even know 80 characters who have died but I'd still put all of those blank spaces before Jason Todd. Ugh! What a loser! Granted, the only Jason Todd I'm really familiar with was written by Scott Lobdell in The New 52's Red Hood and the Outlaws so you'd understand why my hatred for him runs deeper than the jade egg I shoved up my ass before writing this.

The Flash #33

There's a whole voyeuristic shit eating fetish thing going on here that I don't want to think about too deeply.

Why am I reading another issue of The Flash? Because I'm an idiot who can't get enough of these Dark Nights Metal Tie-ins. Speaking of Dark Nights Metal, which is the real title of the series? Is it Metal? Is it Dark Nights? Is it Dark Nights Metal? Maybe it's Tie-in?! Whatever it is, I'm completely hooked. Not because it's gripping entertainment but because I lack the willpower to stop doing things that are harmful to myself.

The issue begins with Barry Allen Narration Boxing "My name is Barry Allen. I'm The Flash." You know, in case this is the first ever issue read by a seven year old immigrant child that was raised in the back woods of a country that is so seventh world that it has yet to be inundated with superhero pop culture. I know that seems far-fetched since 70% of the world economy depends on superhero pop culture but one should never assume everybody knows the titular character's secret identity and how that character often thinks to himself, "I'm me! And as me, I'm also The Flash!" Imagine how poor the world would be without all the blockbuster superhero movies. It's a good thing the cool kids finally decided that comic books weren't for the kids whose heads were constantly almost being flushed down the toilet for unknown reasons. There are adults today who are of a generation that can't even fathom how uncool it was to like comic books or science fiction or Dungeons & Dragons. Although they still think they're being "nerds" or "geeks" by liking the things that were once cause for ostracism and permanent banishment from most human contact (of the non-violent kind, of course). I don't mind them claiming those titles; it's just I don't think they have any idea what it was really like to be on the front lines of enjoying the things they enjoy today while not having their underwear most of the way up their ass and piss in their hair. Of course, now the young kids have other things to worry about. Like saying the wrong thing in front of that one "friend" who will instantly ostracize and permanently banish them from life entirely. Back in my youth, you might get a little banged up for not conforming to the social norms but today, you're just fucking done. And well you should be if you professed enjoyment for something your self-righteous, raving, Jim Jonesesque friend thought was problematic. Keep that shit to yourself, you monster.

I just realized another reason I read terrible comic books! They're a great distraction from our Brave New Shithole World! Thanks, Butthurt Angry Xenophobes! You sure showed them liberals! Y'all are like the heroin-addled downstairs neighbor I had years ago. One day, he had a big blowout fight with his girlfriend with lots of yelling and breaking of things. At one point I heard his girlfriend say, "You're too stupid not to break your own things!" So I guess he really gave it to her good by breaking his own stuff. Just like working class Trump voters!

If you don't want to hear anti-GOP political commentary in your comic book reviews, might I recommend the Weird Science blog? It has the added bonus that their reviews are actual reviews and not just the insane ramblings of a housebound misanthropist. Sure, they're bland and come from people who desperately want to be a serious part of the comic book community so they'll never say anything too harsh about the writing or art of a comic book, even when it's as terrible as Neal Adams' recent Deadman. But they won't call you stupid simply because of your political leanings! At least I don't think they will. I could be wrong. It's not like I've ever read more than a handful of their reviews. But I've read enough to declare the site my nemesis! I should probably interact with them more but they hurt my feelings the last time we had a conversation. One of their zealot followers threatened to slap me with his eight inch penis! And he made sure that I knew his penis is eight inches flaccid! I always knew that tough guy Internet comment monkeys must have the biggest penises. How else could they be confident enough to deliver their scathing rejoinders?!

After Barry identifies himself so that an audience that doesn't exist knows that the red Narration Boxes with the lightning bolt next to them are Barry's thoughts (and that Barry is The Flash because that might also be confusing), he explains that he's currently racing Superman and that Superman has to win. That's a lie. I mean, it's either a lie or poor writing and I don't want to hurt Joshua Williamson's feelings (any more than I may have already by saying his writing is mediocre and generally boring). So let's say it's a lie. Maybe it's an exaggeration of a half-truth so that The Flash can subtly suggest that he always beats Superman when they race. Why wouldn't he?! He's known as The Fasterest Man Alive! Why wouldn't Superman's lawyers shut that shit down if Superman were faster? I suppose, in the same way Superman is smarter than Batman but he lets Batman think Batman's smarter, Superman is just a good guy who enjoys letting his friends shine.

So they aren't racing. That's what I'm trying to say. They're both going really fast because The Flash needs to fling Superman into the Dark Universe. Mind you, nobody has ever willingly traveled to the Dark Universe before this. But when has not knowing how to do something that's never been done stopped a superhero from doing the impossible? Everybody knows that if The Flash just runs fast enough, he can justify any plot point. So that's what happens! He runs super fast and then Fastball Specials Superman into the Dark Universe.

Afterward, The Flash gives Steel the "I have a huge boner" eyes.

After Superman disappears into a black hole which certainly leads to the Dark Universe because reasons, Gorilla Grodd attacks the city. But it turns out it's not Grodd at all but a hungry person who just needed to eat a Snickers. It's a weird moment but it's good to see superheroes actually doing some good and helping regular folks for a change.

Steel contemplates fucking the Anti-Monitor's giant butt plug but The Flash argues against it. It's too dangerous! He points out that Batman fiddling with it is why they're in the mess they're in. I'm not sure they can really blame Batman though. Didn't they read Dark Nights: Batman Lost #1? Batman was manipulated by Barbatos for his entire life. I bet Barbatos even manipulated the radiation around Thomas and Martha Wayne so that Martha only had one viable Bat-egg and Thomas, one viable Bat-sperm.

The other members of the Justice League are all on missions to find Nth Metal. Remember when that happened in Metal? It was just before Detective Chimp was murdered by BatJoker. I know that Detective Chimp never dies on-panel but what other result should readers expect?! That maybe Detective Chimp jerked off all the Bat-monsters so he'd be spared? I suppose that's something that would take place off-panel, so I can't argue against that being what happened. Also I don't want to argue against that being what happened.

It doesn't matter what the other Justice League members were doing because they all get sucked up in Evil Boom Tubes. I'm sure they'll get back to their missions in the next issue of Metal. But for now, they need to fight some of the Bat-monsters to a stalemate so it seems like Metal is full of more action than it really needs.

I'd like to scan a picture of some of the big battles that take place but I can't because they don't exist. Okay, one exists. Doombat and Cybat beat the shit out of Steel and send The Flash into a dark room. The other Justice League members also find themselves in this room. This is probably the hell that the bats must get out of. And by bats, I don't think the title refers to the Batmonsters. I think the bats refer to the Justice League members who aren't Batman. It makes sense because fuck you. It's a clever take on a known phrase! People read it and go, "Oh yeah! I've heard people say that! It was even a Meatloaf album!"

The hells they wind up in are different versions of the Batcave where they're all individually attacked by the Batmonster inspired partly by each of them. And that's where the issue ends because this was all prologue to the big action scene. And in comics, the big action scene is the only reason people keep reading them! So exciting!

The Flash #33 Rating: 4 out of 10. It might earn a higher score if it had left out all of that Narration Boxing. A writer's use of Narration Boxes tends to make it so the writer doesn't need to write a script for a comic book. They just write the plot out through the character's rendition of what happened and leave it like that. It's also the way a writer can force a theme into the story's unwilling orifice. So The Flash, through Narration Boxes, tells a story about how he races Superman. Then that leads to him saying that Batman always advises him to run faster which leads to the big twist conclusion where The Flash points out that he's hearing Batman again but he's telling him there's nowhere to run! It's classic Flash storytelling! Just mention running as much as you can and equate it to whatever the fuck else is going on. Then finish it off by saying, "See? See what I did there? Clever, right?!"

The Flash #22

It's okay to burn books if they're terrible, right?

• If the Justice Society is being reintroduced to the DC Universe, I bet they come back more diverse. I bet Jay Garrick arrives and says, "Hello. I'm Jay Garrick. I'm asexual. I had to say that right up front or else nobody would ever know and fans could only speculate which is all they've ever been able to do in the past being that the general rule was all characters were heterosexual. But if I don't say it right now, right up front, how are all the asexual comic book fans going to know that they have to now consider me their favorite character?"

• It's a good thing Jay Garrick is on the cover or I might not have realized that the ubiquitous Narration Boxes were coming from him. Sure, they show the lightning bolt in the corner so the reader knows whose mind they've been allowed into (because how can a reader know what's happening if somebody isn't constantly explaining it to them? (you probably shouldn't read The Wild Storm if you nodded your head vigorously to that sarcastic question)) but with two other Flashes right there on the page, it could have been confusing.

• Reverse Flash (who died but now isn't dead because fuck you) declares he knows who gave the smiley face button all of its power. The Flash declares how embarrassed he is that Reverse Flash can time travel without an aid and also because Batman is witnessing it. Batman declares he will forever after this moment refer to the Cosmic Treadmill as "Flash's little blue pill."

"Barry, I'm here! And I'm asexual!"

• Reverse Flash arrives at Mister Manhattan's feet and receives a lethal dose of editing. You would think this time it would take. Erasing Revers Flash from the DC Universe could solve a lot of continuity problems. But I've already seen ads of Reverse Flash appearing in future Flash comics so I guess DC just can't resist his allure as Flash's rival. I can understand why. They didn't go through all the trouble of coming up with the perfect name for Flash's nemesis to just throw him away. Now if they'd chosen Evil Flash or Opposite Flash or Yrrab Nella the Hsalf, I could see sending the character to limbo. But Reverse Flash! So great! Unless it's Reverse-Flash. I'm never sure about the hyphen. I think it both exists and doesn't exist due to all of Reverse(-)Flash's time travel shenanigans.

• The Flash can't run through time because he can't get any traction. That's why he needs the treadmill. It's not like he doesn't want to run through time with Batman. He totally wants to! It's all he can think about! But when the time comes, he just can't get his feet to work. Luckily old man Jay Garrick has arrived to help! Not that he'll help in the metaphor I've been cultivating because Jay is asexual. But he'll help The Flash and Batman run through time to get them home.

They did it to sell more comic books. But the bump in sales didn't have the long term effect they were hoping for.

• The Flash doesn't remember Jay Garrick the same way he remembered Wally West. I guess that's because DC isn't ready to publish a Justice Society book yet. Or maybe The Flash did save him but he returned to Earth 2 as he was saved! Now DC can publish that Justice Society book whenever they're ready. Which actually means they'll publish it about eight months before they're ready. They really need to work on nailing down their reasons for doing things before they just jump in and do them.

• A later scene suggests that Bruce Wayne doesn't find happiness in being The Batman. Oh, fuck you, comic book. Of course he does. Stop pretending he's some kind of Jesus figure sacrificing a boring, mundane life so he can save us all from our sins by being a super fantastic and exciting action hero. It's no wonder I like Nightwing so much now. Angst is for self-pitying, joyless assholes.

"I'm just a comic book character who can see the editors. Like that guy over there still groping female underlings."

• There's an epilogue in Watchmen font and style that introduces some event called "Doomsday Clock" coming in November. It has something to do with the Watchmen and Superman and, I'm guessing, Doomsday. It will be terrible but that won't stop fans from already jerking off over it because Geoff Johns name is attached as writer.

The Flash #21

Hey! This cover is a spoiler for the end of part one in Batman #21! I'm glad I don't look too closely at the covers when I buy my comics.

Like last issue, this issue begins in a place where people are locked up against their will. Last issue was Arkham and this one is an old folks home. I almost put a possessive apostrophe on "old folks" before realizing they don't own shit about the place and it's just a descriptor of the misleading noun "home."

Last issue, Saturn Girl was upset and had to be wrestled to the ground and punched repeatedly and probably Tazed for being disruptive. This time, it's Old Man Thunder screaming from the rooftops at the genie who abandoned him. I guess the Legion of Super-Heroes and genies were edited out of the universe when the Watchmen took control. Saturn Girl probably survived by hiding in a Time Bubble. While hiding, she must have kicked the controls which sent her back to Gotham in the year 2017. And all time travelers to Gotham eventually wind up in Arkham because time travel is loony tunes!

Oh! The Watchmen didn't just hate genies. They hated stories that took place in DC's past and future! That's why they tried editing out time travel. Little did they know, Tom DeFalco and Scott Lobdell would be too stupid to follow the no time travel rule. I believe their defense was that the time travelers from the future were from an alternate timeline that wasn't Flashpoint and could therefore time travel! Jerks.

Back at the Batcave, The Flash has strung crime scene tape all over everything. Why? Who the fuck is going to stumble into the Batcave and destroy evidence? Alfred? Or maybe Alfred? Possibly even Alfred? Since it's only Alfred, maybe tell him to stay the fuck out for a bit. I suppose Damian might also blunder in but when has anything ever stopped Damian before? He's not going to respect the boundary of the yellow police tape!

The Flash spends pages and pages Narration Boxing. This issue is simply reminding me why I dropped it in the first place! Williamson has no trust in the medium. He needs to pad the writing to make sure everybody completely understands that The Flash is a forensic detective and that he worked hard to become one and that his super powers don't help him with that and the he got his powers in a lab and that his mother was killed by Thawne and that his first crime scene was his mother's death and that every detail of a crime scene can be worked out by just looking at it and how Thawne came from the future and how Thawne was his nemesis for some reason and...and...and...well, lots of other stuff as well. Maybe that's why Howard Porter drew police tape all over the Batcave. Because he had nothing else that really needed to be drawn since the Narration Boxes did all the heavy lifting.

Eventually, The Flash stops explaining things to the reader and engages in conversation with Bruce.

How could you tell it was with a capital G?! Even if you could see his speech bubbles, all DC Comics' letters are capitals!

Obviously it would be God with a capital G. Otherwise Thawne would have said, "I saw a god!" But he said, "I saw God." So the only reason Bruce needs to explain the whole capital G thing is if he believes Barry Allen is a fucking dope. Oh, yeah. That totally explains it.

Batman and Flash discuss the crime scene and come to only one conclusion: the button is now missing. World's Greatest Detective and Master Forensic Scientist my ass!

Oh yeah! I haven't said it yet even though it was obvious from Batman #21: God is Doctor Manhattan. Although that would mean Eobard Thawne is way more mature than I am because my last words would have been "I saw God's penis!"

The Flash leaves Batman in bed to go investigate on his own because he's had a really stupid idea!

Let's fuck with time again! Because that never hurts more than it helps! Ever!

The Cosmic Treadmill was being stored in a room on the Watchtower called the Hall of Lost and Found. It's where everything that was destroyed due to the New 52 has now reappeared into continuity since Rebirth made it all viable again. But it all needs to wait to be remembered and reintroduced at some point.

Batman arrives before Barry can do anything stupid. But he doesn't arrive to stop Barry! He arrives to help him fuck up continuity even more! What a jerk! Although I suppose if Rebirth is all about returning all stories to continuity, characters should be free to fuck with time to their heart's content now! Go back in time and impregnate Ma Kent, Bruce! Who cares?! It'll all just work itself out somehow. Plus how cool would it be if Superman suddenly had to constantly deal with his slacker Bat-Brother always crashing at the Fortress of Solitude and getting into tons of mischief?

Did Greg Rucka approve this statue?!

That Frank Cho statue has far less nipples and buttholes than I would expect.

Batman hops on the treadmill with The Flash and manages to time travel by holding on with a bat-grapple. I was really hoping he would have to ride on Barry's back.

While time traveling, Batman and Flash see an old version of the formation of the Justice League where they're super fucking nerdy. "Let us form a league to fight evil!" "Right, good buddy! Let evil shake in their boots!" "Check out Wonder Woman's shorts! So modest!" "And our bulges are hardly manly at all!"

They also witness the moment Barry disintegrated in Crisis and Barry makes sure to point out that what they're witnessing isn't from an alternate universe at all. These stories — all of them! — are from their universe! But how can that be?! They're all so contradictory! It's going to do in the heads of all the continuity loving fangenders!

Eventually the Cosmic Treadmill crashes and burns. The Flash and Batman find themselves in the Batcave of Thomas Wayne of Flashpoint! OH NO! They've gone and fucked it up all over again! I can't wait for The New New 52 beginning next fall!

The Ranking!
No change! I almost gave this a positive review because I love Howard Porter's art and because I love when The Flash fucks up continuity (especially when he does it with Batman! Has that ever happened before? So good!). But then I remembered how much Narration Boxing The Flash did and my boner dried up.

The Flash #10

I don't remember a Flash villain called The Vaudevillian.

There have been a slew of celebrity deaths in 2016 that have been tragic and then there's Debbie Reynolds. I'm not saying she was the devil and we should celebrate her death! I just mean she's one of the celebrities that would have went whether or not the year was cursed! I'm not being mean (cynical, maybe! But not mean!) and saying people who loved her and remember her fondly shouldn't mourn. I just think when you bring up the list of unbelievable celebrity losses in 2016, maybe just leave off Debbie Reynolds. And definitely leave off Nancy Reagan.

After Carrie Fisher died, I saw a meme on Facebook that said something about how kids of the 80s are losing everybody who made their lives great. It was a collage of celebrities who were big in the time, including Nancy Reagan. What fucking kid of the 80s worshiped Nancy Reagan?! She nearly single-handedly ruined everybody's fun. What a fucking buzzkill! And how dare she drag Mr. T into her evil network of fun-killing downers!

I'm glad 2016 has never heard of me! It's like one of God's plagues. I think when one of Revelation's seals was opened, it mentioned a mass death of celebrities.

This issue begins telling the fairy tale of Shade Not The Changing Man. This is just the vaudevillian villain from the cover. I guess the most important thing to learn about Shade is this bit of wisdom he learned about life: "your life could be affected by the maliciousness of others." Whoa! Why the fuck didn't anybody tell me this earlier?! I've been walking around in crowds unsuspecting all this time that, at any moment, one of those faces in the crowd might be malicious to me! Or at me! Thank goodness this comic book filled that gap in my knowledge of survival. Now I'm going to make sure I beat anybody who comes near me with a lead pipe. You aren't going to negatively affect my life, you mysterious bastards!

Apparently Shade found a woman to fuck so he reconciled himself to an easy life full of calmness and heavy petting. Everybody was safe from his darkness! But that was a long time ago. That's an ominous way of saying his fuck buddy was probably taken from him in a totally unjust way and now he's out to make everybody miserable by affecting their lives with his maliciousness.

Barry is currently out jogging thinking, "The DC Universe is so stupid right now. I can't wait until it figures itself out and pretends it never Rebooted the stupid thing. Of course by that point, I'll probably have an itch to time travel or vibrate into a triple upside down dimension and everything will become fucked up again." While he thinks that, he's ignoring Iris who is trying to talk to him while they jog. Ugh. The only thing more annoying than jogging is when your shit breaks off halfway out of your ass. I mean, jogging with another person! That's what I meant!

Barry's too nice. I'd tell Iris to back the fuck off and call a Big Brother program for her problem nephew. Even knowing he's Kid Flash!

Last issue, we learned that Iris was a terrible reporter. She was getting sent flowers from an unnamed person every week and denied having a secret admirer. I mean, sure, she was right because it was actually Wally West who was sending them. But she never found that out and there's no reason to not believe you have a secret admirer when you get flowers constantly without anybody taking credit. In this story, Iris tells Barry that she asked him along to jog because she heard there were some "unusual muggings" (whatever those are) happening in the park and she didn't want to jog alone because it would look suspicious. Are you fucking crazy? Iris West is the worst reporter in the world and I won't listen to all of you Iris West fans making up stupid reasons for why her terrible statement makes sense right now. If you are going to defend this nonsense, you have to see that you're completely biased. She's an idiot and there's nothing more to say on that subject. Except maybe to say, a few more times later on, how much of an ignoramus she is.

Apparently the muggings have been unusual because they've been perpetrated by a villain known as Papercut. That's not unusual. That's ridiculous. His super power is to fold paper into origami ninja stars and then threaten people with them. So basically he's me in 7th grade.

Wally turns up to stop Papercut because Barry Allen doesn't act quickly enough. Get it?! He's the fastest man...oh, never mind. I can see why Flash comic books are generally 85% speed puns. They're hard to avoid.

No wonder Barry doesn't want Wally out fighting crime alone. His quips are terribly mundane.

Papercut doesn't remain unconscious even though he almost certainly has a fractured skull. No way Wally West has put in enough time training to calculate how hard he can hit somebody without exploding their brain. As he gets up, Papercut reveals that he controls everything made of wood and I bravely refrain from making an erection joke. Who says there aren't real heroes anymore? I mean, no American, probably, since they're all sycophants worshiping at the altar of military servicemen. I just want to throw my hat into the same heroic ring as people who risk their lives protecting overseas corporate investments. Oh, and, um, freedom too! Probably.

Using the distraction of everybody trying not to make a penis joke, Barry turns into Flash, punches Papercut the precise amount to knock him unconscious for a few minutes, and then rushes him off to Iron Heights where he'll be put in a cell and probably never go on trial and maybe even die on a Suicide Squad mission without ever getting the benefit of a trial by a jury of his peers.

Afterward, Flash and Kid Flash have one of those trust discussions that I'm sick to fuck of because I watch the CW superhero television shows.

Why does everybody have to know everything about everybody else? Respect people's right to have some Goddamned motherfucking secrets!

Wally decides that to earn the Flash's trust, he'll go behind the Flash's back and do a bunch of dangerous stuff the Flash wouldn't want him doing. He's going to solve The Mystery of the Speed of Darkness!

Wally doesn't solve it but he does wind up captured in Shade's shadow place (which isn't as gross as it sounds. Maybe). I wonder if Wally is realizing that maybe Flash knew what he was talking about?

The Ranking!
No change! One of the advertisements for The Flash collected stories says that Joshua Williamson's writing is on point. Is that really a compliment? I would rather somebody describe my writing as entertaining! Not that anybody would ever praise my writing as being on point. Unless the point was to show how often I could digress while trying to make a point. Anyway, this writing might be on point but it's not entertaining me anymore. I hate to give up reading The Flash comic book since it's usually the place where the whole DC Universe begins breaking down but I just don't have time for it anymore.

The Flash #9

Why is The Flash using Barry Allen's lunchbox?

The singer of "Last Christmas" dying on Christmas and now the star of A New Hope dying isn't being very subtle, 2016. We get it. The world is ending next year. Nobody can wait for this year to be over but I think 2016 is just the John the Baptist to 2017's Jesus Christ. I could go on to explain what I mean by that but, not being Christ-like, I don't explain my analogies and metaphors. Mostly because I assume people are smarter than the twelve idiots Jesus chose to pal around with on his Final Tour. Although having just skimmed Revelations (seeing as how it's practically unreadable, especially when you don't really give a shit about reading it), it feels like The Bible was written by a not too confident auteur who wants to make sure that the audience is getting every bit of their genius, so they explain every single image, analogy, and metaphor. "So, like, the world will be ravaged by locusts. But these locusts are wearing helmets and breastplates and carrying spears, if you get what I'm saying! Wink, wink! They aren't really locusts at all! It's an army!"

The rash of celebrity deaths almost seems like a purposeful smokescreen to distract everybody from the political nightmare that has taken place this year! I'm wondering if David Bowie's death was the canary in the coalmine that we all just ignored. He was too sensitive for the toxic atmosphere of 2016.

On a side note, did anybody else find some of the headlines of George Michael's death particularly insensitive? Who thinks starting an article with WHAM! is appropriate? "WHAM! Singer dead at 53! In your face!" It just seems...oh wait. I just got it. Never mind.

This issue takes place on Halloween. Has it been that long since I've read a Flash comic book? Sheesh!

Iris gets flowers every week without a note and denies she has a secret admirer? Worst investigative reporter ever!

The Keystone Bridge is falling down so Iris has to go look at it and write, "The bridge was fine! Nothing happened at all!" Wally and Barry also make excuses to leave Iris's office so they can go play superhero. While Flash is teaching Kid Flash the best way to save the day, he says, "We could spend all our time getting people off the bridge or we can rebuild the bridge!" Then he begins to rebuild the bridge. Um. Just because he's fast doesn't mean he can rebuild a fucking bridge! I suppose he rushes off to learn how, get the supplies, send Iris some more flowers for next week, and then rebuild the whole thing himself as it's falling into the water? Oh yeah! That sounds plausible!

I should probably either stop complaining about The Flash comic book being implausible or just stop reading it altogether. Oh hey! That's a good idea! This book is off my fucking pull list! Although I still have a few issues left in the stack.

The other Wally West shows up to help because this story is called "Kid Flash of Two Worlds!" I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not but then the title ended in an exclamation point and I found myself thinking, "This story sounds exciting!"

When Wally and Wally shake hands, Barry Allen has a mental breakdown and begins channeling The Comedian. He flips the fuck out and begins insulting the two Kid Flashes. He also reveals that Daniel West is actually Wally's father so that clears up the mess about needing a mysterious third West child who didn't exist. Not that anybody was still worrying about that since there's so much more to worry about like "Why the fuck do we need two Wally Wests?!"

Wally West points out how when he touched The Flash, it hurt him. But, he theorizes, what if both Wallies touch him at the same time?! Logically, that should...well, it should hurt them both. But instead it works! Barry stops flipping the fuck out! The day is saved! But the issue isn't over yet because I guess that wasn't the main conflict. It seems Second Wally finding out Daniel West is his father is the main conflict. Second Wally runs off crying because everybody has been lying to him his whole life. He decides to go meet his friend Chunk at a Halloween Party. Yes, Chunk is fat. How did you guess?

Chunk is a real nerd, you motherfucking poseurs.

First Wally is the guy saying "Wally?" It seems First Wally and Second Wally instinctively know that they're each a Kid Flash. Although Second Wally doesn't know First Wally is also named Wally. He just knows the dopey looking guy with the red hair in the over-sized green sweater must be the dopey looking guy with the red hair in the second rate Flash costume from earlier in the day.

First Wally teaches Second Wally about self-esteem or something. Who cares? If you need to be taught that you should love yourself, maybe you aren't really worth loving? You ever think of that?! I love myself because I'm entertaining and sexy. But I imagine I wouldn't love myself at all if I were a boring jerk! People would probably tell me, "Oh no! You must love yourself before others can love you! I mean, other people love you know matter what or something!" And I'd be all, "Liar! I suck!" That's probably how most of you feel, right?

Later, First Wally and Barry discuss the flowers that First Wally has been sending to Iris. I guess he wants to fuck his aunt. Weirdo. At the end of their talk, Barry mentions that he saw a winged metal cap in a vision when he was flipping the fuck out earlier. He said it filled him with hope and/or reminded him of the shitty New 52 Earth Two comic book. Unless the second half of that was just me.

The Ranking!
No change. I think this issue was only written to clear up Second Wally's parentage. Maybe it was a little bit about starting the whole Flash Family concept which people seem to like for some reason. I prefer my heroes to be loners with pets.

The Flash #8

This is how toddlers stand when they're pooping themselves.

I had a dream last night that I was putting together a Peter Sellers/Inspector Clouseau tribute band called Dead Ant. The singer I was trying to lure into the band suggested the name and it was the greatest A-ha! moment I've ever experienced. I hate to include that part because it feels like somebody else came up with the name even though that somebody was created by my brain which thought up the name. Another band somehow associated with the dream was called Mad Mechs.

This issue begins with Barry Allen remembering a conversation he had during lunch with August Heart where August was all, "If I had your speed powers, I'd probably kill the bad guys and get away with it!" This conversation took place after Barry knew August Heart had manifested speed powers. Barry Allen is the worst investigator in the world! Hell, I knew August Heart was the bad guy as soon as I learned his name was August Heart! Also he was introduced as having a huge vengeance boner for the killer of his brother. That's always bad news! But he practically confesses to Barry and Barry is all, "Mmm, this shake sure is thick! So good!"

Now, The Flash is trying to stop Godspeed from killing all of the prisoners in Iron Heights. But The Flash is too slow! Oh no! Drama! The one thing that makes The Flash interesting suddenly has no impact on the story! Now he's got to use his brain to figure out how to stop Godspeed! But how will that work? He can't call for back-up because everybody will be dead before the message even arrives! Maybe he can fire a gun at Godspeed as they're both running and the bullet will be able to overtake Godspeed! Or maybe he can go back in time so that he's waiting for Godspeed at the prison! Or maybe he can yell, "Oh no! I totally tripped! I'm not chasing you any more so you can totally slow down if you want so that you conserve energy!" Oh! I know what I would do! I would definitely use time travel to go back to however long before this moment it takes for Ex-Lax to kick in and stick some in August Heart's lunch! I bet you can't run at top speed while shitting yourself!

Here's Barry's take on the situation: "I can't outrun Godspeed...but I can outsmart him!" Oh, can you? I'd like to see how you do that without pulling the Ex-Lax trick! Maybe he will use the fake tripping scheme I came up with!

Barry outsmarts Godspeed by drafting him to catch up. So dumb! How does drafting work when just running at the speeds they're running they're breaking every single law of physics in the known universe? If I'm to believe that using the Speed Force still creates the same kind of wake behind a runner as a race car then I also have to believe that the atmosphere in front of a speedster isn't able to displace itself fast enough and would build up into incredible pressures causing intense heat which would make every speedster into a fireball racing through the city. But just catching up to Godspeed by drafting him isn't the only trick in Barry's book! The other trick is to scrape his feet along the carpet and build up some static electricity so that when he touches Godspeed's shoulder, both speedsters will short-circuit!

Oh, fuck you. Just run faster.

Remember when The Flash was just about running really fast and wasn't also an analogy on batteries and electrical systems?! Maybe The Flash should change his name to The Human Defibrillator?

Godspeed is aghast that Barry would hurt a friend and Barry figures there isn't enough time right now to bring up all of the "friends" Godspeed has killed in his pursuit of more power. Instead, Barry just watches as Godspeed turns into two separate people because speed force powers weren't already ridiculous enough. I guess if you're fast enough, you can just become two people now! Totally makes sense.

Luckily Wally West shows up. Unluckily, Wally West didn't bring a gun.

It turns out Flash and Kid Flash don't need a gun because they're faster than Godspeed and Kid Godspeed. They run around the Godspeeds really fast until Wally West gets a stupid uniform and the fight is over for some reason. I guess Flash outsmarted me too! What just happened?!

Apparently Wally earned his ugly yellow Flash suit by, um, using the speed force correctly or something. Anyway, Godspeed is sent to Iron Heights where he'll probably never go to trial because the guards at Iron Heights trust that The Flash would only bring them people who were totally guilty of whatever The Flash said they were guilty of.

Barry goes to see August in prison a few days later to hit him with a super shocker: Billy Parks didn't kill August's brother. August--GASP--killed an innocent man in his zealous pursuit of justice! August looks upset for one panel and then just goes back to being fine with everything because he's a supervillain. Also because he can be in two places at once. So while he's in prison, he's probably also out of prison. I know we're supposed to believe that he can't do the two places at once thing for long but he's probably mastered it by now. So his other self has probably taken over the Black Hole Gang and he'll return in another few months to bore the fuck out of me again.

The epitome of shitty cop work: bragging about ignoring the evidence in favor of making assumptions about possible suspects and jumping to unsupported conclusions.

Later, Wally tells Iris that she's his hero because we're all supposed to accept that she's a crazy great investigative journalist who wants to help people by discovering the truth instead of relying on the evidence from past issues that she's really just into selling papers. I mean, that whole time she helped turn the citizens against The Flash with her unsubstantiated stories of rumor and cop gossip? I suppose that was Pre-Rebirth Iris and I should cut her some slack. Maybe she will prove to be a shining beacon on a hill of decaying corpses and dog shit that is journalism today.

The issue ends with Meena running into Flash's training facility and whispering "Thank you" into Barry's ear (and probably blowing out his eardrums too). Barry doesn't catch sight of her but she leaves gouges in the floor and all of that shitty lightning that apparently has to surround speedsters constantly now.

The Ranking!
1. New Super-man (*)
2. Deathstork (*)
3. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (*)
4. Suicide Squad (*)
5. The Flash (*)

The Flash is terrible and boring. This was eight issues of The Flash learning a lesson about needing a sidekick. In other words, the first eight issues have been used to integrate Wally West into the world of The Flash because DC Comics decided five years ago that Wally West shouldn't exist and then they rethought that because people got so angry and they reintroduced a new Wally West which didn't make anybody any happier and who never really fit into the Flash's world. So now that this story is over, DC Comics is probably patting themselves on the back and thinking, "Finally! All of the Wally West nonsense is sorted!" Except I guess it isn't because the next issue is about "The Wally of Two Worlds" which will probably be about how Wally West and Wally West need to get to know each other. Hopefully original Wally West will just say, "Do we really need you?" And then new Wally West will pop out of existence. Not that I really care! But DC Comics definitely cares! They just don't know it yet. But pretty soon some higher up who isn't that creative will enter a meeting saying, "What's with the two Wally Wests? Isn't that confusing for fans? Here's an idea that can sort that!" And he'll write "CRISIS ON INFINITE CENTRAL CITIES" on the white board and smile smugly.

The Flash #7

Godspeed is not a clever villain.

The Commentary!
• Recently, policecop August Heart let justice go to his head and he became a vigilante. But then as a vigilante killing criminals who were arrested for the pettiest of crimes so he could take their speed powers, he let the speed force go to his head and he became a supervillain. And now as a supervillain, he needs to kill The Flash since that's what supervillains do. I guess he really isn't into justice any more.

• Now August Heart, aka Godspeed, thinks so much of himself that he's decided to narrate this issue. Shoot, he probably can't be any worse than Roy Harper.

• August Heart is still making excuses for killing a bunch of the newbie speedsters. His excuse is, "I just wanted more power!" Hmm, that's not much of an excuse, right? Barry isn't going to buy that one. He should have said something like, "I slipped in the shower!" That one always works with proctologists. Although it probably only works because they're not really interested in the real reason you got a Zima bottle stuck in your rear end, or why you were drinking Zima in the first place. Oh! A good excuse that usually works for calling in sick to work is that you have diarrhea! Although one time, Doom Bunny's friend Marco tried that excuse and wound up needing a doctor's note so he went to the doctor and told a bunch of lies that made it sound like he was way sicker than faking and so he ended up getting a rectal exam. He still got out of work so it was probably worth it.

• Oh! Speaking of Doom Bunny, he's often posting things that his son says on Facebook that are funny (you know, the way parents do!). But he sent me a text the other day that said this: "[Son's quote] I can't put on FB: "Mama, I don't know why, but my penis is straight out!" I'm sure his wife either said "Go talk to your dad about it" or "I've got a headache."

• Godspeed beats up on Barry by creating two versions of himself. He's that fast! I mean, does speed explain that ability? I know time travel explains it! But it's not like anything can be fast enough to be in two places at once, right? Anyway, he can't do it for too long before he's overcome by tremendous pain. That's when Barry kicks him in the nuts and runs away to come up with a plan.

• Godspeed is faster than the Flash because Godspeed stole a bunch of other speedster's powers. So Barry is going to have to take all the power away from the speedsters left in Central City. They don't want their power anymore anyway. He just needs to figure out how to do it without killing anybody. He and Godspeed did it once, so it can be done without Crisis on Infinite Earthing the other speedsters. But for now, Barry needs to pout because he's not the fastest anymore.

• Godspeed decides he's not a supervillain at all but a superhero. So he goes around stopping crime by grotesquely murdering anybody committing the crime. I guess he forgot about the justice system!

• The Flash discovers Wally has super powers and that Wally needs training. And a terrible yellow suit.

• The Flash and Wally meet with the other speedsters who give up their powers to them. All it took for a person not to die in the exchange was to be willing to give up the power. After they're finished, it's just Godspeed, Wally, and Barry left with the power. That means it's time for the big fight where Godspeed will lose his powers and say something like how he just wanted justice and Barry will say something about vengeance and then everybody will laugh as the credits roll.

Ah ha ha ha ha!

• I got the order of things wrong! Barry's justice versus vengeance comment happened before the big fight. The Flash and Godspeed are headed to Iron Heights to talk. Or to steal Zoom's powers. Or to kiss in the janitor's closet.

• It turns out August Heart just wants to kill everybody in prison. He's not as compassionate as his name would make one think.

The Ranking!
+0! How many times do we have to have the story about whether it's better to kill criminals or to leave them to the justice system? I just watched the first episode of the new season of Arrow and they had that fucking discussion. I'm so fucking sick of it. It's lazy and arrogant and fucked up to kill a criminal. It's also the way most ignorant assholes think. They believe once a criminal, always a criminal. Hell, it seems to be the majority opinion of most Americans. Somebody does something wrong, throw them in a cell and destroy the key. When did we decide the idea of rehabilitation was completely off the table and not even on the floor where it fell but hidden in a locked crate and tucked away in the basement? People aren't inherently good or bad. And often, the current prison and justice system helps to keep people bad instead of giving them any hope that they can turn their lives around after a poor choice or terrible mistake. My mom sent me the series The Night Of (pirated by her off of her DVR, of course!) because she loved it so much. One of my first major reactions while watching it was incredulousness at how they put a person awaiting trial in a serious fucking prison. How the hell does that happen?! Even if the court denies bail, how in the hell do you put a presumed innocent person in a prison surrounded by people who have already been convicted? And, of course, that was a huge part of what the series was about. I still don't want to believe that that actually happens. Does that actually happen?! HOW IN THE FUCK?!

The Flash #6

Oh! How come I've never thought of this before? The amount of power The Flash needs to run up a building would absolutely cause him to crash straight through any window he ran across! And most skyscrapers he runs up are all windows! Man. Now the whole superspeed thing is ruined for me.

The Things!
Remember how The Flash used to battle people who threw boomerangs and shot icicles out of guns? Who was the first writer or editor to sit down to work on The Flash and think, "What the fuck are we doing? How are these villains challenging The Flash?! This is fucking ridiculous!" Then they ruined everything and decided Flash should only battle other speedsters and time travelers. At least every now and then back when The Flash was somehow not dodging every boomerang thrown at his head (I guess because he didn't know how they worked and that they came back around after he dodged them!), a writer would at least try to make things plausible by having him fight a psychic ape.

I wonder if this is the issue where we'll discover that August Heart is really Godspeed? Or will the twist be that that totally comic book twist isn't the actual twist? Because that would be a huge surprise! You know, I'm starting to think this story has gone long enough that Williamson realized everybody was going to guess that August Heart was Godspeed and so now Godspeed might wind up being Meena.

The issue begins with Godspeed fucking with some guy because of justice! Hey! Isn't August Heart obsessed with justice?! I wonder if they could be the same person? Probably not, right?! I mean, sometimes plot points that are way too easy to guess are that way so that people will guess them and then the writer can be all, "A-ha! I knew you'd take the cliché bait, you stupid fuckhole! This other thing is what was really going on all along no matter how it doesn't make as much sense as the cliché thing!"

Barry began this story learning, with help from Iris, that one of his major failings was always taking on too much at one time. He never had time for anything because he tried to make time for everything. Having a city full of speedsters to lighten his load solved that problem. But now Godspeed is killing them all and taking their speed so what does Barry do? He spends all of his time trying to solve the case and tell people their loved ones died and work August's brother's murder case all at once! Didn't he learn anything from Iris's advice?! Not that he should have. It was kind of stupid. But thematically, I guess it's appropriate that he's back to where he began? Because he runs so fast he always winds up standing where he started? Or something?

Barry notices that what happened to Meena seems to be the same thing that happened to him during Crisis on Infinite Earths. But that didn't actually happen. I don't think. Did it? I don't know. Whatever.

Godspeed kills again and Barry still has no idea that it's August. I mean, he doesn't know who it is.

Man, I'm really betting the farm that it's August, aren't I?! Well, even if it turns out that it isn't, I'm going to say that it was in these commentaries so that I don't look like a fool.

Ouch! Show some respect!

Barry needs to find out who Godspeed is so he checks with Iris because she's a journalist. Who better to go to than a journalist if you want to discover the truth? That's a joke! The kid who hands you your tacos in the Taco Bell drive-thru probably knows more than most journalists! Well, maybe they don't. But at least I know that the kid in the drive-thru won't be all wishy-washy about her opinions or worry about what Taco Bell management might think of them or worry that something she says might limit her access to other Taco Bell patrons. Iris really must know something because she's already thought up the headline for the story she has yet to write: "MURDER AT S.T.A.R. LABS. WHO IS GODSPEED?" That, my friends, is a shitty fucking headline.

While Barry is asking Iris for help and sort of groping her ass as she hugs him, Wally walks in on them and flips the fuck out. He goes all rabid teenager on Barry and screams at him to solve the crime already. As if Barry isn't trying to do just that! Can't Wally see that Barry's best lead is to read Iris's headline?! Sheesh. Wally runs off crying to find The Flash since Barry can't be dicked to solve the case in the next ten seconds. Lazy fuck.

One of the reason Barry goes to Iris is because he's read all of the evidence over and over and he's super tired of reading it. So he thinks a new set of eyes will discover something. And he's right! Iris finds the name of one of Godspeed's victims that might be a clue to his identity! Not that the name was hidden! But she discovers the person wasn't registered with STAR Labs as a speedster. When Barry looks at the name, he's all, "OH SHIT! Godspeed is August! And, I mean, how come I didn't react to this name before when I read this evidence the other six or seven times I said I read it? Maybe I should really read shit instead of telling people I've already read it. Fucking Wally was right. I'm totally not doing my best to solve this case!" Actually, Barry just looks shocked when he reads the name and says, "...oh no." But that's practically what I said previously.

So Barry catches up with August and is all, "Now I know why you couldn't come up with a code name! It was right there in my stupid CSI face all along! You do have a code name! It's Godspeed! You're Godspeed! I cracked the case!" And August is all, "Let's race!"

No wait. They don't race for some reason I don't understand. That's always the first thing competing speedsters do! They have to wave their big fast dicks at each other to see whose is quicker. Oh wait! They may not race but Godspeed definitely does pull his dick out.

Oh! I'm glad I mentioned that bit about Iris's advice earlier because this revelation sticks to the theme!

Ranking!
0. Usually when I guess something in Issue #1 that won't be revealed until Issue #6, I crow about being a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader. But the only people who didn't instantly know August Heart was the bad guy on page one of the first issue should simply be embarrassed. I'm still sort of hoping that next issue will reveal that Meena is actually behind it all somehow because this revelation was just pathetic.

The Flash #5

Barry, that is impossible.

The Things!
• Barry Allen decided to tell Doctor Meena Dhawan that he's The Flash because she made googly eyes at him. I guess they're a couple now even though they only kissed at the end of the last issue. That was probably so Joshua Williamson can have one of them make a joke about how fast their relationship is moving.

• Meena is calling herself Fast Track. Ugh. I "ugh" because it's typical of The Flash comic book to bury the reader in puns and her name is because she can "track" other speedsters. But "Fast Track" is also a thing people say that has nothing to do with her powers! Which is what makes it a pun. I think.

• Meena winds up training Wally because he doesn't want anybody knowing he has powers. But she was all, "I know you have powers! Use your powers! I'm going to keep bugging you until you use your powers!" Wally eventually gives in and uses his powers. Luckily he likes it but there may come a time when he thinks back to this moment and realizes the older person abused her power and trust and got him to do something he wasn't yet ready to do.

• Godspeed attacks STAR Labs and steals the Speed Force from a bunch of the trainees. That's a good thing because there are way too many speedsters in this story.

• Meena is one of the speedsters and she not only loses her powers but her whole body as well. The Flash comes to help but he's too late and only finds her costume.

• August Heart was with Flash the entire time so how can he also be Godspeed? I'm sure there's an explanation! It probably has to do with time travel!

The Review!
This might just be the Rebirth comic book I care the least about. Look at how little I had to say about it! If I really cared about it, I probably would have asked some serious scientific questions like "How quickly can Fast Track and The Flash fuck without anybody being injured?" or "If Meena took a lover who suffered from premature ejaculation, could she use the Speed Force to orgasm more quickly?" or "Why isn't this comic book more entertaining?"

Abra Kadabra! (as seen in Titans #1)

PERSONAL DATA
Alter Ego: Unknown
Occupation: Former Stage Magician, now Professional Criminal [Really? Now? As if it isn't a crime already to pay people to watch magic.]
Marital Status: Unknown [Come on! He's a magician! Obviously unmarried. And a virgin.]
Known Relatives: None
Group Affiliation: None
Base of Operations: 20th and 64th Century Earth [He might have the biggest base yet!]
First Appearance: FLASH #128
Height: 6'6" Weight: 195 lbs.
Eyes: [Magical! Um, I mean] Blue Hair: Black

HISTORY
Frustrated by a lack of audience acceptance in his native 64th Century, since the superscience of that time made his magic tricks commonplce, Kadabra stole an experimental time machine and journeyed to the 20th Century to become a star. After failing to attract an audience in the traditional manner [Annoy the fuck out of people on the street until you can get a membership to the Magic Castle?], Kadabra used his futuristic scientific knowledge to commit a series of daring robberies [So instead of using his knowledge of futuristic science to perform what our limited knowledge would think of as magic, or instead of using his knowledge of futuristic science to patent a shipload of technology that could help the world, he uses his knowledge of futuristic science to rob convenience stores?], forcing his victims to applaud his criminal actions [Oh, okay. I get it now. Totally makes sense.], thus providing Kadabra with the acclaim he so desperately craved. Originally, Kadabra stole merely to gain attention [but now he needs to pay rent and shit too?], but he now devotes much of his time attempting to gain vengeance on his archenemy, the modern (Barry Allen) Flash (see The Flash).

POWERS & WEAPONS
Kadabra uses 64th Century science, specifically in the areas of teleportation, telepathy, and telekinesis, the science of the mind over matter [Or, you know, bullshit.], to perform acts which seem truly magical. He often channels his powers through a slim magic wand, but this is merely an affectation [Hipster!] and is not necessary. Kadabra's forte appears to be effecting bizarre physical transformations on his foes (i.e., turning The Flash into a living wooden puppet).

The Flash #4

Godspeed can create wormholes!

The Review!
In this issue, Barry Allen learns...um...does he learn anything? I wonder if I would have noticed he learned anything if I were reading this comic book seriously instead of looking for opportunities to make stupid jokes about it? I know what I've learned while reading it! I've learned that other people try so hard to figure out who they are that they pour a sort of foundation of ethics and beliefs to stabilize the house of themselves. So when I say something that I totally don't mean because I think it's funny--or because maybe I do mean it, to a certain degree, in that it's a thing that makes sense which is what makes it funny, whether or not it's true--people read it as my final statement on the subject. When I say superspeed is a stupid power for assholes who always think of themselves as too busy, that's just a thought I had at the time that was funny and made sense. But it doesn't mean I can't or don't have other thoughts about why people would want superspeed. It just means I made a statement, not that I live by that statement. I find many people seem less malleable about the things they say because they want other people to know exactly who they are. Their statements express their selves. I suppose the more secure somebody is with who they are, the less they care about saying something which might be misinterpreted by somebody else. And boy howdy do people love to purposefully misinterpret everything said by everybody else forever! And I just realized something else that I learned! Or maybe something that I've just reconnected with that I knew all along and have probably mentioned once or twice before: this blog isn't about reviewing comic books! It's about reviewing me! So it's apt that I don't know what Barry learned in this issue (except maybe how to kiss somebody while in spandex and then hide the subsequent boner) but I know what I learned from it! Is that a good review of Flash #4? "I read it and learned something about myself"? I suppose it's better than "Joshua Williamson writes yet another mediocre Flash story where The Flash battles other speedsters and hangs out with other speedsters. I'm sure there will be time travel soon too!"

The Commentary!
Currently in Flashtown, just about everybody who is anybody can run at superspeed. It's like the city has turned into two different worlds. One where a bunch of jerks are running around doing things at superspeed as if their time is so fucking important and other people who are just walking about and doing things at a normal, reasonable pace. In my last commentary, I pointed out how superspeed would be wasted on me because I couldn't be bothered to exert the extra effort. But I think I'd change my mind if I could sleep and dream at superspeed! Then I'd have more time to do stuff at normal speed while awake!

The Flash is now conducting speed training classes at STAR Labs. I wonder if while training them how to use their powers, he's also telling them exactly how they should use their powers? Remember, Barry Allen is a micro-managing asshat!

How come I have yet to see a scene of Amanda Waller and Steve Trevor and Etta Candy discussing nuking Keystone City because it's become a threat to national security and the world? You can't have this many people with superspeed! It's irresponsible!

How do you train somebody to think fast? Throw things at them when they aren't looking?

The Flash is also investigating the new speedsters because he thinks one of them might be Godspeed. Why isn't he investigating the least likely person it would be? August Heart! Too bad The Flash doesn't know he's in a comic book where the most unlikely answer is the likely answer because SURPRISE TWIST!

Racist.

The Flash tries to make a dumb joke to Doctor Dhawan and she instantly thinks he's flirting with her. Just because your super hot and have super speed and your brain can calculate in an instant just how stupid my brain is, that doesn't mean everybody wants to fuck you, Doctor! Geez! You think you're such hot shit! I mean, unless you were just making a joke too! To make Barry feel uncomfortable because it's always funny to make somebody feel uncomfortable! Unless that person is one of those people who is all, "But I have a medical issue that makes it wrong for you to make me feel slightly uncomfortable! That's not a joke at all! It's a trauma!" Ugh! Maybe I have a medical condition where I'll die if I'm not slightly mean to other people! Have you ever thought about that?!

August Heart shows up at STAR Labs and is all, "I'm totally not Godspeed! Don't even think it! Name is August Heart! That's not the name of a bad guy!" And then Iris West shows up and is all, "I may be a blogger journalist but I've got ethics! So even though I could be totally famous and get lots of money and maybe a sweet ass Pulitzer to put that stupid Lois Lane in her stupid place, I'm going to share my news with you first Flash! Integrity!"

While Barry Allen is investigating Godspeed and flirting with Dr. Dhawan and listening to Iris yammer on about some conspiracy, he's being fired from his job with the police. And he knows he is! But he just shrugs his shoulders and says, "A Flash has got to do what a Flash has got to do!" Then he winks at Dr. Dhawan and Iris at the same time. So he blinks. And they don't know he's trying to flirt.

Flash learns from Iris that Dr. Carver, the leader of the Black Holes, was fired from STAR Labs for trying to weaponize the Speed Force. Somehow he retrieved a sample of the Speed Force which makes no sense to me. Is the Speed Force like pie? Can you just hack off a slice to do delicious experiments on? The Flash and Dr. Dhawan gear up to go find Dr. Carver but Godspeed...I mean, August is told to stay behind because he's still injured from his absorption of other people's Speed Force. I mean, from being beaten by Godspeed. Blink! I mean wink! Good thing Barry didn't let him come along because now Godspeed can appear at the warehouse to try to steal more Speed Force so he can avenge his brother while also yelling, "I'm not August Heart at all! Nobody think that!"

No technology Dr. Dhawan has ever seen?! But she's an über genius!

Dr. Carver is a mad scientist that is more mad than scientist. He claims he was trying to harness the powers of lightning like Benjamin Franklin before him. What kind of a scientist would make that claim about Ben Franklin? Okay, maybe Carver's sentence is a bit muddled and he only meant he was experimenting like Ben Franklin. Anyway, his slipshod knowledge of Ben Franklin's reasons for experimenting with lightning aside, Carver explains that being struck by lightning was what made him realize that The Flash shouldn't be allowed to keep the Speed Force to himself. And, of course, none of that makes sense. How come everybody knows The Flash got his powers from being struck by lightning but they don't know his secret identity? Is it because the idiot wears a lightning bolt symbol on his chest? Did Doctor Carver, the supposed scientist, base all of his claims on an assumption? How does anybody know that Speed Force is gained from some kind of lightning?!

You know what? I'm just getting myself worked up here! I should just remember Carver is a mad scientist and leave it at that. Godspeed will kill him soon anyway.

Carver activates a machine he wears called The Speed Machine and seriously fucks himself up.

Barry is an expert on Speed Force nonsense.

August Heart shows up with two disposable new speedsters to help stop Carver. Because August thinks Carver has answers to his brother's death years ago. He still doesn't have a catchy speed name. At least not one he can reveal to Flash without all of his plans falling apart.

I didn't want August Heart to become the bad guy but I'm pretty much all in on him winding up being Godspeed! I'm going to look like a fool if it isn't him! Or I can just point out that the writer messed up and never revealed the real secret plan of August being Godspeed. You know, like how Lobdell and DeFalco never got around to explaining how Harvest was really Tim Drake from the future after he'd been turned into a vampire.

Barry, Dr. Dhawan, and August steal Carver's powers using the same trick Godspeed used to steal the powers of the kids in Iron Heights. But they do it in a kinder way that doesn't leave Carver dead. Plus his lab is destroyed after the battle so now they have no more leads! Barry points out that it all seems too convenient. As if there's another villain pulling the strings! Like, um, you know: Godspeed!

But the comic book isn't over yet! Wally West still needs some story! Although he only gets half a page where he decides to go train at STAR Labs. Then it gets back to Meena Dhawan and The Flash who are in Boner City, Population: Barry's boner. I mean, Meena kisses him and, well, he's wearing spandex. It would probably be insulting to Meena if nothing moved down there. And because of the kiss (and probably because Barry has totally lost his job at this point), he reveals his secret identity to Meena! Which is probably a stupid move because she was hot for The Flash, not Barry Allen. What if she was already kind of grossed out by Barry? Now she's going to be all, "Oh, well, hey. Look at that. Is it too late to pretend I tripped and accidentally kissed you?"